These Streets Are My Streets
by MidnightMoonMaiden
Summary: He could tell the world, even if he couldn't tell the Knight Commander. He'd brand these streets a thousand times over to tell them. Even if these streets are not his streets but hers, to see that smile on his healer, was worth the petty crime.


**This is my first Dragon Age fic so i'd really apprecite some balanced reviews :) I hope you enjoy it and thank you for reading. I do not own any of the characters in this as they all belong to the wonderful Bioware.** **This is an M/M coupling. **

The city was Aveline's; she'd told him so herself. 'These streets' she said 'Are my streets'. She could walk them with her eyes closed, each stone branded into memory. How he had expected to get away with this is a mystery to both of them. Why he had done it exactly was proving even harder to explain, though Hawke assured her that it hadn't started out the way it had ended. It's hard not to laugh; alcohol and nerves make it hard to hold his face straight. Anders is watching him; he can feel his eyes burning into his back. If he turns he knows what he will find, Anders stood there stoic and stubborn with his arms folded and a proud frown of disappointment that reminded him so much of his Father.

"It was the drink's fault." He said while flashing the sexiest, sweetest grin that he could possibly manage. It earned him only a glare: a dark, frozen glare of disappointment. And that was so much worse than the anger. A talent his mother knew all too well and used all too often. This, unfortunately, was not going to end any differently. Head hung low he glanced at his feet, dedicating the increasing levels of soberness to the formation of any sort of suitable excuse. Preferably one that didn't involve dragons.

"You're going to fix this Hawke. You're going to prove to me again, that I can trust you to behave. Show me that this won't be a long road of disappointment" The red head never removed that glance, never even blinked…it was heart wrenching. Her arms folded over her chest while she waited for him to nod. Only when she received that acknowledging nod did she unfold her arms and with one arm extended outwards, she exiled him from the room.

Like a scolded child he ambled out of the room slowly, dragging his own staff behind him while he sulked his way towards the keeps exit. The half silent footsteps that echoed behind him assured Hawke that Anders was following. It was Anders's fault he reminded himself. All the healers fault. Sort of…He was, in the least, the crime's inspiration. To an extent.

"Would you tell the world, the Knight-Commander, that you love an apostate and will stand beside him?" He'd asked it with such love, such terror…How could Hawke say no? Pointing out that informing the Knight-Commander he knew the whereabouts of an apostate sounded like the sort of response that ruined the mood. So he'd said yes and the idea had slipped passed them and been forgotten amongst their days of loving each other.

Until he'd gotten drunk and he'd mentioned it in passing to Isabella. Together they'd sprung an idea that had ended with him being hauled away by the Guard Captain herself, by his own ear. Painfully. It was harmless, childish even but harmless overall. It was a sudden, drunken memory of Lothering that had started the entire event, remembering those shapes carved into the trees. Remembering how Bethany had dreamed of a day when she could scrawl the longings of her own romantic heart into a defenceless tree. Just like in those sappy novels she read. She'd hidden them under her bed, away from the prying eyes of mocking little big brothers. They'd found them anyway of course.

Slamming down the drink he's seen the tiniest of hearts scratched into the grime of the Hanged Man's tables. It would have been sweet if it hadn't been surrounded by Isabella's telltale calling card, scratched into the table's dirt just as it was carved into his stairway. But it had triggered enough of an innocent memory, hidden amongst the naughtier ones, for an idea to form. Down into Darktown they had stumbled, Isabella and he, partners in petty crime.

They'd taken the path Hawke was certain Anders took to the estate and branded the wall. Starting in the one alley it had spread like a sickness to five more. Six alleys covered in six large hearts, burnt into the wall. Six hearts that read simply 'H & A', readable only in four after his hands had shaken too much from the drink and giggles. Finished only in five as thick and pointed gauntlets had gripped him by the ear during the sixth and hauled him, whimpering and laughing, deep into the justices of the Keep.

The disappointment in Aveline's voice would haunt him forever but despite the frown there was mirth in the healer's eyes, a rare smile now tugging at the corners of his lips. Wonderful and worthwhile, just for that smile.

"Love…There was a moment there when I thought she might actually paint the walls with you" The frown moves and fades, the lines of his brow harden, soften and vanish as the smile breaks past the healers worries, past his tiredness and lights up his face in a softness that stops Hawke's heart every time.

"You and me both" There's a drunken chuckle, a stumble forward as Hawke reaches out for him, pulling the healer close and burying his face in the open expanse of neck and flesh. "I can't tell the Knight Commander but I can tell Darktown."

There is a smile, as bright as the blue-white light of Justice. But his eyes remain crystal, beautiful and as golden as the ripe corn in the fields of Lothering. So many moments cast his lovers face with a frown, not branded by any sun of tranquillity but with the frown lines of Anders's own frustrations and hardships. Even the brightest of smiles won't break away those marks but they soften them, remind Hawke, Varric, even Anders himself that once there was a man who didn't carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. Any way to lighten that burden becomes a second duty, for Hawke, sometimes for Varric, even Isabella at times.

It is beautiful, almost a shame to break it with a kiss but he can't resist. Lips meeting gently he wraps his arms around the small waist of his lover and pulls him close to deepen it, the smile not breaking but bursting brighter across the healers face and melting Hawke's heart even through the alcohol. The hearts branded into the walls of Darktown are his own. They are Anders's and Hawke's at the same time. It is stupid, childish and Aveline won't ever let him forget it but even if the rain and population of Darktown will rub those marks away into nothingness there is permanence in just that one smile, branded into Hawke's own memory for eternity.


End file.
